Coinstar raises price on rentals from Redbox kiosks

Coinstar has announced their quarterly earnings today, surprising some.

The company is raising the price on Redbox kiosk rentals from $1 to $1.20, effective the end of the month.

Execs say Blu-rays and video game rentals will still cost $1.50 and $2.00 with no price hikes.

Says the company:

We remain committed to providing redbox consumers access to the latest movies at an incredible value. This marks the first price increase for a redbox standard definitionDVD rental in eight years. The change is primarily due to the increase in operating expenses, including the recent increase in debit card interchange fees as a result of the Durbin Amendment.

Overall, Coinstar says their Redbox business surpassed $1 billion dollars in revenue for the year.

Hate to say it, but 1.20USD is rather trivial LOL! I think Greed played a role here. But perhaps there is some truth to the rising debit card fees. But since it's all done by computers, how can that be? I suppose somebody has to deal with it...

Operating expenses? The more customers you have, that rent the same disc, the more profit you earn ;)

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 27 Oct 2011 @ 17:20

Redbox works well for me. I rent 2 or 3 Blu-Ray disks a month. There's four Kiosks within walking distance.

On another note.. Capt. America is fairly decent except for the audio looping and some scenes that look way too cartoonish.

The kit car with the supercharger sounds more like a turbo, flying wing even if it is a turbo prop sounds like a commercial jetliner and the onboard bombs sound liked Huey UH-1. I guess most people won't notice or don't care.

Redbox is 8 miles from me :( though there are 3 machines there. They're handy, when netflix denys me a new release. Like jurassic park. Grrr! LOL! They must not have got enough copies. I don't think redbox will have that one though. I wanted to see if they were worth buying first. I may just grow inpatient and buy them. We'll see.

Originally posted by omegaman7: But perhaps there is some truth to the rising debit card fees. But since it's all done by computers, how can that be? I suppose somebody has to deal with it...

All businesses get charge a fee to accept credit and debit cards. There is also a percentage charge per transaction. Debit cards and credit cards with rewards programs are charged at higher percentages.
I am not happy with the increase, but costs have to go up eventually. $1 was such a nice round number. $1.20 just feels odd. My question is are the coupon codes going to be worth $1.20 now?

Originally posted by omegaman7: Hate to say it, but 1.20USD is rather trivial LOL! I think Greed played a role here. But perhaps there is some truth to the rising debit card fees. But since it's all done by computers, how can that be? I suppose somebody has to deal with it...

Operating expenses? The more customers you have, that rent the same disc, the more profit you earn ;)

Originally posted by klassic:

Originally posted by omegaman7: But perhaps there is some truth to the rising debit card fees. But since it's all done by computers, how can that be? I suppose somebody has to deal with it...

All businesses get charge a fee to accept credit and debit cards. There is also a percentage charge per transaction. Debit cards and credit cards with rewards programs are charged at higher percentages.
I am not happy with the increase, but costs have to go up eventually. $1 was such a nice round number. $1.20 just feels odd. My question is are the coupon codes going to be worth $1.20 now?

Correct. The banks are raising fees all around which eventually all ends up on us. But here's the kicker. Those companies receiving those fees can use that as a tax right off. That's why it is illegal for them to charge as a service charge for using our cards but they find ways to do it anyway and we as consumers don't fight it so what eventually happens is we establish a precedence which will later become common law and irreversible. Kinda like paying child support for a kid that's not yours or paying income taxes for the first time.
So essentially people who rent from redbox are really just padding the companies pockets. Even though its just $.20 multiply that by all the customers plus per day, per transaction, and you can see that the shareholders just made a huge lick.